Belinda's Rings (8 page)

Then I heard the sound of the school doors slamming behind me. Footsteps. Gavin Mills appeared on the sidewalk, started walking towards me. His long hair was hanging over his eyes in greasy ropes, so he didn't notice me sitting at the bus stop at first. I stood up. Sat back down again. For some reason, my heart started beating really fast. It wasn't 'cause I was afraid that Gavin would tell on me. I knew he wouldn't. It wasn't 'cause I liked Gavin either. It was just this weird feeling where I felt like running away. Away from the bus stop and away from PLen T. Wong and his ugly prosthetic Fu Manchu. I stood up again.

Gavin looked surprised when he saw me. He smiled. I realized I'd never seen Gavin Mills smile before, except that one time he told Sabrina Chowdhury that her tits were showing. We'd been outside for field hockey, and she wasn't wearing a bra under her Bow Valley High gym strip. You could see her nipples, and one of them just happened to be sticking out like a pushpin right in the hole of the ‘o' in ‘Bow.' Gavin had smiled that sly, tightlipped kind of smile that guys never use on other guys. But the smile he cracked when he saw me was a real smile, complete with teeth. I smiled back, couldn't stop myself, even though I knew it made me look like a horse 'cause my upper gums show too much. I stood right in front of the bench. My arms felt like limp noodles hanging at my sides so I put my hands on my hips.

Hey, Gavin said, combing his hair back with his fingers. It fell right back over his eyes and he flicked his head, held it kind of up and to the side so the hair would stay tossed across his forehead. You skipping? he asked.

Yeah, I said, I didn't feel like listening to Mr. Pearce ramble on about the House of Commons.

We finished that unit like three months ago, he said.

Oh really, I said, I guess I don't pay much attention. I laughed. It came out sounding really high and chirpy. I could tell by Gavin's face that he thought I sounded like a total ditz.

But you always get good marks, he said, scrunching his eyebrows. Didn't you win the Social award and the LA award last year?

Oh yeah, I said, that was a long time ago. That was Junior High. It was just a dumb award thing, it didn't really mean anything.

You got those plaques, Gavin said, with your name carved in them.

Yeah, I forgot about those. I don't even know where they are anymore.

Gavin gave me this
are you kidding me
kind of look. He could tell I hadn't forgotten about the plaques. Actually, they were hanging on the wall in Da's home office.

Anyway, I said. I started putting my backpack on for no particular reason. I gotta go.

Aren't you waiting for the bus? Gavin said.

Yeah, that's my bus, I said, pointing to a bus waiting at the traffic lights on the other side of the road. I forgot which one I was supposed to take, I told Gavin as I started jaywalking across the road. Gavin just stood there, watching me. I hadn't noticed that a car was coming and it screeched to a stop in front of me. A little Aah! sound came out of my mouth and I ran to the other side, staring at my feet.

Gavin waved when I got to the stop. I watched the bus coming up the road, pretended not to notice him. I could feel cold sweat soaking through the pits of my t-shirt.

The bus was a number 37. I had no idea where it would go. I got on and chose a seat at the back. When I looked out the window I saw Gavin standing up on the bus bench. I don't know why. He wasn't doing anything, just standing and staring straight ahead like a statue, his greasy hair flapping around his ears in the breeze. Everyone on the bus was looking at him. As we drove away, I could see Len T. Wong's eyes between his spread legs, following the bus down the street.

I didn't think about what I was going to do until we turned the corner. I was about to ring the bell for the next stop so I could get off and run across the street to wait for the 77, but then I didn't know if Gavin was going to be getting on the next 77. So I just sat in my seat and started biting my hair, which is what I always do when I'm nervous about something. One day you'll cough up a hairball, Jess always says when she sees me doing it. Not likely, Mum had once corrected her, she'll need surgery if she's got a hairball. Hair gets lodged in the small intestine, Mum said, I saw it on TV. Ever since then I've pictured this ball of brown hair with food bits all stuck in it, sloshing around in my gut, but it still doesn't stop me from biting my hair.

The bus was one of the old-style ones with the long sideways benches at the back, so that when the bus was really full you'd keep sliding into people's hips every time the bus stopped and started. The public transit booty-bumper. But luckily since it was the middle of the day there was just me and this other guy sitting on the bench across from me, chewing purple gum and smacking his lips really loud.

The bus must be going to the LRT station, I told myself. I was sure that all the buses going in this direction went to the LRT station after the high school. I could get off there and figure out if there were other buses going past Squid's school. I looked at my watch. It was 1:17 pm. I had time.

Where're ya goin,' girlie? said the gum guy. He lifted the brim of his ball cap so that it stuck up in the air. The sun coming through the windows made his forehead shine.

Nowhere, I said. I mean home. In my head I said, None of your business. Girlie yourself. He nodded, started chewing his gum vigourously, making his chin wobble up and down. He took off his cap and there was a bald patch on his buzzed head, right smack in the middle.

What's yer sign? he asked.

Ssorry? I said. I almost laughed out loud.

You look like a Capricorn, he said. He yawned, tilted his head back. His tongue was stained purple. Then he looked at me again with his eyebrows perked up, and his eyes looked wet from yawning so wide.

Ooookay, I said. I turned to the window and watched K-Mart fly by. Let the traffic light be green, I told myself. Let the next three traffic lights before the station be green.

You a Buddhist? he said, and then quickly — I ask because I don't wish to offend her majesty the Bali-Bali Queen of the Forbidden City. He pushed his thumb into the side of his nose, sniffed. Cackled to himself.

I almost piped up about how I was actually born in Canada and I'd never been to China, but I stopped myself when I recognized the slur in his voice, the way his head rolled back on his neck. Wiley once told me you could see under people's skin when they're drunk, right down to the bones. I knew it was just a figure of speech, but it made me think of the alcohol like some kind of acid, so when the person swallows it all their skin comes sizzling off, like burning from the inside out, until the charred flesh is just lying in scraps on the ground and only a skeleton is left. My school owns this life-size skeleton that they keep in the storage room next to the Science lab, and a few years ago these grade twelves got ahold of it somehow and hung it from Mrs. Desoto's ceiling. They'd strung it up by its neck with fishing line so that the feet were touching the ground as if it was standing on its own. And they strung up the hands too, so it looked like the skeleton was flapping its arms like bat wings. People said they heard her scream from the basketball courts outside. It's funny how a useless dead skeleton can give people the willies but a live person with skin covering a skeleton isn't considered scary at all. If you think about it, the skin is kinda like a costume, a cover-up for how people really look, which makes its pretty ironic that people dress up like skeletons for Halloween.

Anyway, by this point the bus had reached the last traffic light before the station. I was literally just about to breathe out an audible sigh of relief, let my neck uncrimp itself so I could stand up and wait by the door. And then — we turned left. Instead of going straight through the lights to the LRT station, the bus turned left and merged onto the highway faster than I could think to yell out STOP. I just sat there letting my cheeks get hot and watching the trees along the side of the road go whooshing by. I put a strand of hair fatter than a cigar in my mouth, and my teeth were practically chattering. I thought about talking to the bus driver, but I didn't want gum guy to hear.

Sometimes I wonder how I get myself into these ridiculous situations. Then I remember it's my bad karma. Mum says there's no such thing as bad luck, so I say karma instead, 'cause it's basically the same thing. I've got another five years to live down because I broke the giant mirror that Jess used to have mounted on her bedroom door. We were fighting about something dumb, probably who was going to look after Squid, and I stormed out of her room and slammed the door. It was weird 'cause I've slammed her door dozens of times and nothing ever happened. But that time, the whole thing just fell right off. Did a belly flop on the carpet. It didn't shatter either, like you would expect. Only cracked into a whole bunch of pieces, so it sounded like a stack of newspapers being dumped on a concrete floor. I didn't even know I had done it until I heard Jess moaning like a humpback whale. When I opened the door the mirror was lying flat on the carpet with all the pieces in place, like a jigsaw puzzle just waiting to be stuck together. And that was that. Seven years bad karma. It was an ugly mirror anyway.

When I finally got off the bus I was close to tears and it was 1:44. I was on some random street that I'd never seen before and I felt like my throat was packed with stones. I didn't know what else to do but cross the street and take the next bus going back in the other direction.

I was going to be late. No way was I making it to Squid's school by two o'clock. I started whispering to myself, you stupid, you stupid, stupid idiot, how could you be so stupid, you fuck, you fucking stupid. I almost thought about killing myself right there, it was that bad. I imagined, just for a second, that it was me hanging from Mrs. Desoto's ceiling, the fishing line pressing a thin bluish streak into my neck. And I hated the gum guy, really really hated his guts, loathed the very thought of that freak-nut and his revolting purple tongue.

Eventually I found a bus stop, and when the bus came the driver told me it would take me back to the LRT station. I must have looked really relieved then, 'cause the bus driver said he would tell me when we got there, and then he pointed out where I could catch the 77 as I was getting off at the station. That made me feel a bit better.

I made it to the school by 2:28, and the assembly was still going. When I got into the gym the kids were in the middle of singing a song about chicken soup. Squid was up there on the risers, first row, singing away.
In February it will bee-ee.
My snowman's anniver-sa-ree-ee
. Since he was at the front you could see his arms were stick straight and his hands were in little fists, pressing at his sides. Somebody, probably his teacher, must've told him you have to stand up straight when you're singing, because he was all stiff like a toy soldier.

I had to climb over someone to get a seat on the fold-down chairs they'd set up under the basketball nets. Squid must've noticed me then. When I looked up he was grinning like crazy. He was smiling so big he could hardly sing, couldn't form the words properly 'cause the corners of his mouth were way up at his ears. His back was even straighter than before, and his fists were practically vibrating he was so happy. He couldn't stop smiling, you could tell he was trying to 'cause he'd lost where he was in the lyrics and he was looking all confused. The kid beside him belting it out,
Happy once! Happy twice!
Happy chicken soup with rice!
I was pretty well cringing in my seat, saying in my head Jesus Christ, Squid, quit grinning, you look like a doofus. He managed to chime back in at the end of the next verse,
Blowing once! Blowing twice! Blowing
chicken soup with rice!

And then a weird thing happened. All of a sudden, I started to cry. I started thinking about how ridiculous it was that Squid was so happy to see me, that he didn't care that I was late, and then I was crying. It just happened, like that. One minute I was thinking Squid looked like a dork and the next minute I had tears brimming at my eyes. All these images were flashing through my head: making gingerbread houses with Squid, having water-balloon fights with Squid, letting Squid tear off the tinfoil for the pan of McCain Superfries we were making and Squid getting all excited about the spiky tear-off thingy. It was like a movie montage reeling through my brain. I had to bend down and pretend I was getting something out of my backpack, but then the tears started dripping on the floor and I had to wipe my hand across my face. I could feel the lady sitting next to me glance at me. I unzipped my backpack, shuffled my binder and lunch bag around. I didn't know what else to do so I kept shuffling and just hoping the crying would stop.

V

THE GRAIN WAS WOVEN
with riddles. Canola, wheat, maize, barley, linseed, and rye. Their brittle stalks would snap if you tried to bend them by hand. Before Belinda knew anything about crop circles, she assumed that the shapes were mown out of the fields, the stalks razored off. She'd seen the front-page stories in the tabloids speculating that
UFO
s had been landing in the fields, stamping the ground beneath with their spinning discs. The increasingly intricate designs quickly debunked that theory, but another convincing explanation had yet to take its place. Unorthodox wind vortices couldn't explain how the grains of one stem bed had been bent at different heights to create defined layers like trifle, or how these layers could be swept in opposite directions. But crop circle theories fell by the wayside as soon as those two opportunists from Southampton insisted they had masterminded the phenomenon. They claimed to have dragged a plank attached to a rope to flatten the grains. Belinda was certain this was just a ploy to gain attention and notoriety. The manmade crop circles could be picked out on first glance by even the least discerning eye; they were crooked and lopsided, the lines wavered, and the flattened grains were smattered about the ground like road kill. They were a joke compared to the true circles, in which the stalks were bent at near ninety-degree angles and brushed like hair into perfectly symmetrical forms. The stalks were not flattened, but hovered inches above the ground. Their seeded heads had been swept into neat parcels of cresting waves. No evidence of footpaths leading into or out of the field. And besides, there were simply too many occurrences — more than one hundred each year in England alone, and dozens more across the globe — to be attributed solely to the work of two silly pranksters.